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ACT Scores Show High School Students Are Not Ready for College

This year's ACT scores show that only 1 in 4 high school students are prepared for college in all four subject areas the test examines. Plus, education news on Hispanic enrollment and the college students most likely to be in debt.

There’s a reason why colleges have to remediate so many students. According to a report on college and career readiness from the ACT, the Class of 2012 has some catching up to do. According to the latest results of the organization’s standardized college entrance test, only 1 in 4 students qualify as prepared for college in all four subject areas: English, reading, math and science. While about 72% of all ACT test takers met at least one of the four benchmarks for college readiness, 28% of students did not meet any of them.

Students were best in English, with 67% of test takers meeting that benchmark, and worst in science, with fewer than 1 in 3 students making the grade. Overall, the ACT scores were identical to last year’s—a 21.1 composite average.

When broken down by race, the ACT results are consistent with the typical portrait of the achievement gap: Asian students were the most college ready, with 42% meeting all four benchmarks, and black students were the least college ready, with just 5% meeting the mark in all four subject areas.

More education news from the week: Schools As Segregated Today as They Were in the 1960s
The same week as a report from the Pew Hispanic Center showed Hispanics comprise 25% of all public elementary school students, a report released yesterday by the Center for American Progress shows schools spend $344 more on every white student than they do on every student of color. The report also found that our schools are “as segregated today as they were in the 1960s.” Nearly 40% of black and Hispanic students attend schools where more than 90% of students are nonwhite, whereas the average white student attends a school where 77% of his or her peers are also white, the report found. Read the full report here. (At the higher ed level, the Pew report found Hispanics are now the largest minority group on two- and four-year campuses, comprising 16.5% of all college enrollments. See the full report here.)

Number: 91%
That’s the percentage of teachers who say they spend some of their own money on school supplies for their students—a stat that definitely won’t surprise any teachers out there. According to the survey of more than 1,100 teachers, conducted by AdoptAClassroom.org, 67% of teachers spend money on snacks and 30% spend money to buy jackets, hats and gloves for their students.

Middle Income College Students Most Likely to Be in Debt
A forthcoming paper finds students from families who make between $40,000 and $59,000 a year graduate with $6,000 more debt than students from families who bring in less than $40,000. According to Education Week, black students, first-generation college students and children of single parents are also more likely than others to have more debt. Read more here.

Court Says Schools Can’t Check Students’ Immigration Status
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that the part of Alabama’s controversial immigration bill that ordered public schools to check the citizenship status of new students was unconstitutional. Doing so, the ruling said, wrongly singles out children who are in the country illegally. However, the court upheld a key part of the law that requires police to ask for proof of citizenship. Read more here.

Stat of the week:
Fresh off the Olympics—where the U.S. won more medals than any other country—a report from the Center for the Next Generation takes a look at how the U.S. stacks up against China and India in terms of how well each country is preparing its next generation for competition in the global economy. The most telling stat: By 2030, China will have 200 million college graduates—more people than are in the entire U.S. workforce. Read more here.

In case you missed it:
Officials at Emory University announced that since at least 2000, administrators had knowingly misreported information of incoming students, such as their GPAs, SAT scores and student short term loan amounts, in order to gain a more favorable spot on college ranking lists. The false information was given to U.S. News & World Report and other companies who compile college rankings. Last year, the university was named the 20th best school in the nation by U.S. News. Read more here.

Kayla Webley is a Staff Writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @kaylawebley, on Facebook or on Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.